


'Til I Break You

by CorsetJinx



Category: Assassin's Creed
Genre: Autumn of Terror dlc, Gen, Mentions of Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-30
Updated: 2016-04-30
Packaged: 2018-06-05 13:09:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6705610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CorsetJinx/pseuds/CorsetJinx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Six months is a long time to spend in the dark.</p>
            </blockquote>





	'Til I Break You

It’s dark here, in the basement of Lambert Asylum. He thinks he can smell the misery in here just as well as the old blood and rot, that and whatever else has taken up residence in his prison. A part of Jacob, small and verging on gone entirely, thinks that maybe it ought to be funny that he’s now trapped in a place he’s been to in the past – climbed over, mocked, dilly-dallied in. Very nearly made sky-high with another explosion, because if the asylum wasn’t doing any good to its patients, why keep it around?

A darker, meaner, _beaten_ part of him wonders if things would be any better if he had. If Evie might have eventually forgiven him, unlikely as that would have been.

He’s always been good at ruining things, a better thug than an Assassin – look at where he is now.

The walls of his throat scrape together as he tries to swallow, but the dryness there is one of the few minor pains he can boast. His chest aches, deep and presently dull, what might be several cracked, or broken, ribs tend to make themselves known if he moves too much. His legs stretch out before him but he doesn’t even have the will to see if he can stand – if he even managed to prop himself up on the filthy wall behind him and try, Jack would just take it as a sign that _more_ needed to be done to put him in his place.

Jack.

Jacob doesn’t want to think about Jack. Especially not here, where the boy – man, he’d raised might have spent a good many of his own years, knew it better than anyone else and used that to his advantage.

Just like _Jacob_ had taught him. Just like an Assassin.

No - not like an Assassin, he corrects himself. Assassins like Evie, like himself even, didn’t do this – hole someone up in a dark, disgusting place and beat them within an inch of their lives, exploit their terror like it’s the first sight of real food they’ve had in years.

Jack fed off of fear, off _terror_ , and he was very good at inflicting it.

Had Jacob unknowingly taught him that as well and never noticed? Had he somehow brought Jack to believe that this, this type of cruelty was acceptable, encouraged?

He didn’t know.

He was, at least mostly, certain that he didn’t want to know.

Just like he didn’t want to hate Jack.

Jacob thinks he does, on some level, mean and bitter, betrayed and heartbroken, hate the man he’d initiated into the Brotherhood. It would probably be impossible not to but –

But…

Jack had been a _child_ , once. And _Jacob_ had taken him from this place, tried to take care of him as best he knew how, tried to teach him the value of the Creed and what it meant to _save_ people.

Jack had once trusted him, maybe, in some small way. At least enough to learn from him and stick around when Evie had left for India with Greenie but now…

Wasn’t it a little messed up to hate the man he might as well say could be his son?

Was it all his fault, start to finish, or had he just not seen that something was wrong and getting even worse..?

The only door in the room scraped across the floor as it was swung open, hinges squealing unpleasantly. Enough to make him wince, and then regret it when all the various hurts across his body responded in kind.

Jack’s boots made considerably less noise, even if the man was similar in build to himself.

Assassins should be silent, patient, and above all aware of their surroundings. Jack was most of these, silent most of all – patience came in varying lengths depending on the current situation and what Jack wanted from it. He wasn’t sure about awareness, only that when it came to them being alone together Jack was _extremely_ aware of him.

Aware of his every fault, it seemed – real or imagined, and Jack had what seemed like a very definite idea of how to make him pay.

“Jacob. Didn’t sleep, did we?” The voice comes closer, Jack’s figure a broad shadow that separates itself from the gloom on the simple principle that he moves, but his steps are quiet and he sounds almost affable.

Jacob swallows again, old fear and pain mixing in his chest with a new wave as he watches the glint of a knife in the weak tallow-light that managed to get past the door’s barred viewing window. He doesn’t want to be conscious for this visit, aware that it wouldn’t really matter anyway – even if he managed to fall asleep Jack would wake him, bring him pain and he’s so tired of hurting and being afraid of someone he’d trusted once.

Part of him wants to call out to Jack again – because even if Jack killed those women (Jacob knows he did, knows because Jack told him about every one and _how_ it happened and why it was _Jacob’s fault_ they died at all – never mind the gruesome details) the man was still near enough to a son that Jacob still wants to _help_.

He’s tried. He’s talked, pleaded, begged – he’d never begged, not when his and Evie’s father died and the Brotherhood had been skeptical, not when Evie and he were growing apart and he’d missed her every day and it seemed like every conversation ended in an argument, not when Starrick had held his twin sister by the throat and drained her life away to replenish his own.

He’s begged Jack not to do this. To be calm, to think. To let them try and help – nevermind that Jacob actually doesn’t know _how_ to help, even before this point.

His face stings as the tears slowly crawl down his cheeks, possibly more on the side of his swollen eye than the other. If Jack can see, and he isn’t at all surprised if he can, it won’t make much difference.

He’d written to Evie before this, asked for her help.

Maybe it will reach her. Maybe, after fifteen years, she’ll come and save her stupid little brother one more time.

Jack’s fingers are warm enough for him to feel through the gloves the man wears, but they’re sticky with something – the smell hits him and he knows it, knows it’s blood and he doesn’t want to know who it belonged to (don’t be Evie don’t be Evie please)

“Jacob.” Jack says, and that’s when it all happens again.


End file.
